


Reassurance

by OneShotWonder



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Gen, Hurt Dean Winchester, Hurt/Comfort
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-08-29
Updated: 2016-08-29
Packaged: 2018-08-11 19:40:47
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,070
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7905115
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/OneShotWonder/pseuds/OneShotWonder
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A short snippet of Dean getting rushed to the hospital by his father after a hunt. Dean fades in and out of consciousness as he tries to piece together what is happening.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Reassurance

He woke up to the slow rumble of tires on dirt. Home, or as close as he could call it, tucked ungracefully inside a ’67 Impala. The first thing he felt was the soothing tremble of her frame on a freeway heading towards the sun.

The next was pain.

At first he couldn’t really tell where it hurt the most, seemed like his body was pulsing pain with every not-so regular heart beat. Then it settled just-so uncomfortably in his chest. A flashbulb of searing, radiating from the center of him.

Sucking in air and gritting his teeth, he opened his eyes a slit, facing his father in the driver’s seat. John gripped the wheel with a force and his face told Dean just how much trouble he was in.

'Hold on,' he says a little too quickly, 'you are going to be ok,' that firm Marine-like tone, flat determination, cool reassurance.

But his eyes betrayed the confidence, worry lines drawing every one of his years, memories of death, in his brusque handwriting scrawled over his features.

Dean was scared. But what was fear to them, at this point? Some dry euphemism for a thing they had all passed on years ago.

When Mom burned, Dean was afraid.

When he saw a real spirit for the first time, he was past fear.

When he saw his hundredth monster, he didn’t think he could feel fear anymore.

It was almost comforting, returning to that feeling he had lost so long ago, he could have smiled at the infant wonder if his mouth worked, but it was a fumbling bleeding swell, that opened only to breathe.

 _What happened_ , he wanted to say, but all that exited him were coughs and spasms, and he was gone again.

\--

When he awoke it was to the smell of disinfectant and coppery blood. His own blood, he thought. There was a buzz of commanding vocals swirling above him, actions were being taken, an authoritative tone spoke words Dean couldn’t understand. As his body rolled under intermittent lights, one voice came through in a harsh whisper, edged with anger and fear.

'You fight now, boy!' His father commanded. And he braced himself against the tide of unconsciousness beating at the back of his eyes in a firm _Yessir!_ He was sure his teeth would break as ground them into each other and gripped the too white hospital sheets into one fist. He could feel the blood leak out of him in spurts, then in waves, when the doctor pulled back the fistfuls of gauze he held to his chest. He concentrated with everything he had on keeping awake, feeling the warm blood re-coat his hand that held soaked through gauze. Hearing his Dad’s voice over and over on a loop in his head. He watched the nurse fill the syringe and tried to tell her no, but his lungs were deflated balloons and his vocal cords felt disconnected; and she jabbed the needle into his hip.

Morphine.

He didn’t want it.

The pain, he could fight, he could understand. The pain was a familiar friend, told him he was alive.

But he couldn’t fight the cool blue wave when the drug hit his system. He lost the surety of being alive, lost the feeling of blood pounding in his ears, reaffirming his survival.

And he didn’t mind.

The morphine dipped his senses into a warm bath and dunked his head under the water. If there was a scrap of consciousness left, he felt too tired to swim to it. He let his head go under, sighed as his eyes rolled back into sweet, pure blackness.

\--

The third time he opened his eyes he was alone, but the room had the warm air of someone who had just left. There was a hint of floral perfume, so Dean assumed it was a nurse.

His waking wasn’t the usual jolt of sudden absolute awareness that a hunter needed to survive, but rather a slow climb into reality that gave him a vague sense of nostalgia. It was late afternoon and the sun beat down through faded curtains in streams, that contrasted how cool and stale the room was. Dean saw his Dad’s leather jacket on the back of a plastic chair, pulled up close to the bed, and felt a stab of layered disappointment.

Disappointment that his Dad wasn’t there, disappointment that he was in the hospital, which was an absolute last resort for their family, and a feeling of disappointment in himself, for letting his father down, for not being strong enough to take down the monster without going down himself.

The drugs they gave him now didn’t really take away all of the pain, it just made it that he didn’t care so much how bad he was hurting. It would have been an unfamiliar feeling for the hunter, who was used to pain, if this wasn’t the first time he had been in the hospital with severe injuries in his short life.

He hated the feeling of being so far away; he wanted to be strong, to face what his body was doing head-on, not behind fuzzy morphine curtains. He tried to sit up but his chest and stomach were aflame with warning the minute his muscles started to contract. Swollen, shaking hands with dried blood in the creases fumbled at the bandages on his chest. He tried to carefully lift the tape off his objecting skin and peer at the damage underneath. Stitches, too many of them, curved down from his collarbone to the top of his ribs on the left side, and on the right, fresh staples that Dean could only guess was the result of surgery.

His insides were magma, and his stomach twisted in protest.

Then shock as Sam huffed into the room. Red eyed and face swollen from crying, desperation coating every small feature of the boy. His long hair hung limp and greasy into one eye, and his clothes, already too small for his growing lanky, 14 year old frame.

'Dean!!' His face changed in an instant; from a worried adult back to the joyful child he still tried to be. Dean could feel the sore muscles of his face pushed up into a smile when he saw his brother. 'Sammy. I am ok, I am ok, I promise,' he patted his brother’s hand as he rushed to the bed.


End file.
